


Pursuit

by scy



Category: Heroes - Fandom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-01
Updated: 2010-01-01
Packaged: 2017-10-05 14:14:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/42601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scy/pseuds/scy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mutual evaluation</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pursuit

**Author's Note:**

> It's a question of where they meet.

Sylar knew how to listen, and when he heard earth give way and a laugh that echoed in fresh air, he turned toward the sound.

He found the laughter again on another continent, where Sylar was a foreigner, but there was one who stood out even more, and Sylar found him in a teahouse, sword resting at his side, an empty space seemingly waiting, and Sylar took it.

Patience was someting he knew well, and had known how to practice alone until he was sought out for his abilities, so he didn't begin speaking until his cup had been refilled.

"I've heard very little about you."

"I must say the reverse is true," the man said.

"You were part of the company," Sylar said. "In fact, Adam Monroe was a founding member."

"That's correct," Monroe said.

"They have been extending their operations, and their influence has taken an unpleasant tack when it comes to people like us."

"The objectives of the founders were very different when the company began," Monroe said. He wasn't giving any indication of his feelings either way, and Sylar looked at him more closely.

"They're infecting people," Sylar said in a hiss. "Using a virus that's been laying around for the last thirty years or so."

That gave Monroe pause, and he lowered his cup as ice crystals formed on it. "I remember when Victoria and Kaito believed they had an answer in that disease." He flicked the beads of ice off, and took a sip.

"You don't seem old enough to know that," Sylar said.

Monroe smiled. "If you had no idea of what I can do, you wouldn't have approached me so openly."

"No?" There were very few people that Sylar would hesitate to challenge, but Monroe, who had nothing that he could threaten Sylar with, looked ready to suggest that care needed to be taken in what he said.

"You've acquired a number of talents," Monroe said. "Mine is not one that you can steal with my death."

"Why not?"

"There's a chasm between immortality and healing."

"Who's to say that I can't take that from you?" Sylar asked.

Monroe smiled. "It's been tired, by people who had much more to lose. "They tried to kill me, and failed, and they've paid for that miscalculation."

"All of them?" Sylar asked.

"Nearly all," Monroe said.

"Are you looking to continue that trend?"

Monroe's gaze moved over Sylar, and he didn't seem impressed. "I care less about what you've done that I do your reasons." Monroe sat back and folded his hands across his stomach, "Why have you been collecting abilities?"

"And why should I explain myself to you?"

Monroe laughed. "You came to find me, even thogh both of us are being hunted. Either you want to find someone who understands, or you think that you can end my life when dozens of scientists haven't been able to."

"I have time," Sylar said.

"More than three decades?" Monroe asked. "They kept trying until they realized that it was futile, and then decided that the only way to stop me was confinement. That didn't last either."

Sylar frowned "If all you can do is heal, how did you escape?"

"Dear boy," Monroe said, "of everyone who has come into their genetic destiny, you should have some idea of just how important it is to use subtlety in your actions."

That made Sylar grin slightly. "You think that you can teach me."

"Your actions suggest that you have a need to continue on as you have been doing. There are those with gifts who do not know how to use them or who have deluded themselves into thinking that they are above culpability."

"You're talking about the Company."

Adam nodded. "When you look around, what do you see?" His regard was like sandpaper on raw skin and Sylar sat up straighter.

"I see wasted potential. People going through their lives and letting themselves be ordinary." Sylar thought he might have let too much of his intensity get away from him, but Adam didn't seem disgusted as others had been, he just smiled more widely.

"Natural selection won't keep the new population in check, but humans will try and control anything that they think might threaten their place as the most dominant species. But that won't permit evolution, which is necessary for the survival of the race." Adam gave Sylar another look. "Your compulsion lets you preserve unique genetic variations," Adam said.

"Why should someone who doesn't know what to do with their talents be allowed to waste them?"

"Why indeed." Adam finished his drink and reachd out to grab his sword.

"How are you going to find them?" Sylar asked.

"I brought the founders together, and what they've forgotten is that I also taught them when to hide and when to stand and fight."

"They haven't gone down quietly," Sylar said, going off what he had seen in the newspapers and heard in whispers behind closed doors he wasn't supposed to know to look for.

"They've been eliminated too easily," Monroe said, and this time Sylar detected disappointment of a sort in people who had been his students.

"You take failure seriously."

"There's no other way to handle it."

Sylar thought about Mohinder, his accusations and betrayed expression, and how in spite of all that, he and others were still not vulnerable enough for Sylar to handle as he really wanted. "I agree."


End file.
